I'm comin'

home.

In exactly a month, I'll be on a plane headed to sunny Singapore.

:) and :( simultaneously.

Something Box.

If I were a guy, this post would’ve been called “Nothing Box”, but I’m a girl so I don’t have a Nothing Box in my brain. (Wait, there wouldn’t even be a post like this if I were a guy…)

Looking after babies for 11 hours a day (when I’m on duty, at least) leaves me with a significant amount of time to ponder about… life. So since I’ve been doing so much more thinking than you have (just because I have more time to do so), I thought it’d be nice if I shared all my answers to life’s deepest questions with you.

Just kidding. My brain cannot handle such profound thoughts. So I’ll just share some random things that go through my mind while I hold babies :) and while I’m at it, some random incidents too.

Random incident #1 – I was holding little L, and because of the way I was carrying him, his arm was behind me. He started grabbing at my t-shirt, but in doing so was kinda poking me, and I started to giggle…

Random thought #1 – Wow, even a 5-month old baby can tickle me...

Random incident #2 – I was feeding the older babies cereal for breakfast while Lisa held a smaller baby, and we were talking for a long time. Eventually I finished feeding the older ones, so we both went to sit on the couch – each holding a baby as we continued our conversation.

Random thought #2 – Lisa! This is what we’ll be like in like, 10 years! When we meet up again we’ll be carrying each other’s babies and sitting around drinking tea and chatting!
(At this point, we both got extremely excited… but we realised that we had to first get married.)

Random incident #3 – There are 3 particular babies who puke a lot, especially after being fed. On this particular day, 2 of them were lying on the floor side by side, and every other minute, they’d puke. I really do not exaggerate when I say every other minute – they did puke that much.

Random thought #3 – Technically, it wasn’t a thought, but it broke my heart every time I had to wipe up baby puke from their clothes/the floor/their faces… And mind you, I had to wipe it up a lot of times.

Random incident #4 – There are usually 3 people on a shift, and Lisa (not the MDT Lisa) was working in the isolation room while Mackenzie and I were outside handling the 12 babies. We fed the big boys their baby food first, and later when we were supposed to give the younger babies their bottles, one of the big boys started screaming because he wanted to be carried, and it was almost as if his scream was contagious. Once he started, 3 other babies began wailing, and having 4 wailing babies out of 12 in a living room really isn’t the most pleasant experience.

“Stressful” isn’t a good enough adjective to describe the whole situation. I was frustrated as I failed miserably at propping up the bottles of 2 little babies, because they kept tugging at the towels holding their bottles up, and each time the teats slipped out of their mouths, they would start screaming/crying. (It’s like putting an M&M in your mouth and then having it taken out before it melts, or being given KFC but not being allowed to lick your fingers after that, you know? You know?!)

Random thought #4 – As more babies started fussing, I got increasingly agitated, and tried my best to remain calm as I fought a losing battle. (Wah wah wah, drama sia…) But what I realised was that it’s easy to enjoy looking after babies when they are smiley and giggly and well-behaved, but it takes real love to be patient and caring when they’re shrieking the house down and pulling your hair out (or causing you to want to pull your hair out).

I really do love the babies I care for; when they’re making my day with their toothless grins, and when they’re decreasing the days of my life by bawling simultaneously. The romanticism of looking after babies 11 hours a day is fading (or maybe it’s faded), and I’m starting to love what I do for what it is, rather than because I’m excited to be here and do something I’ve never done before :)

K

As I held him today, I couldn’t help but realise how special he is. Not that he wasn’t before, and not that the other babies are any less special, but… this baby has definitely won a special place in my heart.

He’s somehow able to giggle and laugh at anything and at anytime, which just makes my heart melt and tempts me to cuddle him so tight that all the air is squeezed out of his baby lungs.

I’ll clear the air before I begin by clarifying that I really haven’t worked with that many babies before coming to the Door of Hope.

But never have I met a baby who…

smiles and giggles the whole time while you change his diaper and get him into a clean set of clothes,

totally amuses himself when left to play with the colourful rack thingy (no idea what it’s called and I’m not gonna try to describe it for you),

gives you the most adorable toothless grin ever just after covering the whole right side of your shirt with his puke,

smiles at you just because you look at him.

So because this baby is soooo heartwarmingly adorable and sweet, I decided pretty randomly to give him a Chinese name! Well it wasn’t all that random – I was actually telling him that he’s going to grow up to be an awesome man and marry a lovely woman and have great kids and that God has an amazing plan for his life (and I meant every word I said), and then I was singing to him and Kenzie asked me to sing in Chinese and I did, and then somewhere along the way I was inspired.

This child will no longer be known on this blog as ‘K’, but ‘Le Qiang’, which means Joy and Strength J I know it isn’t the most spectacular name for all ye Chinese reading this, but I love this little baby! (not that that explains anything but… hahaha)

And I love all the other 11 too, they’re simply gorgeous :)

First Days

Monday, 31 January 2011

Lisa, Mackenzie (2 close friends I was on MDT with, and both happen to be from the USA too!), and another OM volunteer joining us from Switzerland by the name of Rebecca, and I arrived at the Door of Hope.

Forgive me for the excessive amount of detail in the opening paragraph; I just thought it’d be nice to clear that part up since I’m spending the next couple of months with them J

The Door of Hope is the next ministry I’m volunteering at, and it’s located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Door of Hope mainly cares for abandoned babies and, to a smaller extent, toddlers, and finds them foster/adoptive families.

So, upon entering the house, I saw a girl my age sitting on the floor with a child in each arm and about 10 children lying all around her, and for some strange reason I just felt like crying. It was another one of those overwhelmed-by-a-mix-of-emotions moments…

Fear – 12 kids to 1 caregiver sounded like a pretty intimidating ratio, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that…

Excitement – I was finally at the Door of Hope, and I’d be able to love all these kids and play a part in giving them hope.

Love – Simply seeing all these babies who had stories behind how they ended up here and knowing that they all deserve and need love and care stirred up a weird emotion within me… I’m pretty sure it’s love. I don’t even know how to describe it because it wasn’t an emotion per say. It’s difficult to describe love sometimes.

By the way, I didn’t cry. The others went to pick up a baby each, so I went and played with one on the floor for a little while before finally being courageous enough to pick him up. We had a short orientation around the house and were settled in a flat downstairs for the night.

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

We started work at 7am. The day shift usually lasts from 7am – 6pm (even longer than MJC study hours!) with a short 15-minute break in the morning and an hour-long lunch break.

First thing on the schedule – wash up the babies.

Kenzie and I (we’re both working in the Big Babies’ department where the babies are between 3 and 10 months of age while Lisa and Rebecca are working in Starfish cos they’re staying here longer) followed the other 2 volunteers into the little boys’ room.

Never have I seen anybody in the world looking so happy first thing in the morning. I stood by the cot of a little boy named L, and when he saw me, he smiled and started giggling. T, in the next cot, was flashing a toothless grin too. Practically all the babies were smiling and giggling, and that just made my day.

(If only I could wake up this happy every morning… Well I probably could if I wanted to actually. Hehe.)

It was a totally exciting experience for me to change my first diaper ever. It sounds ridiculous but I don’t think I’d seen the whole diaper-changing process before. Movies don’t count. I was lucky enough to have the first 2 babies only wet (good warm-up), but the 3^rd one was an adorable, chubby boy with thunder thighs and kicked a lot, and pooped a lot too! So yes, I did get to change my first dirty diaper J

Once all the babies were cleaned up and changed for a fresh start to a new day, we fed them. Some of the older boys were fed cereal while the younger babies were given bottled milk.

And so 1 February marked the day I first fed a baby bottled milk J I might’ve actually done that before but I don’t remember it so I probably haven’t.

The rest of the morning involved holding and playing with babies, feeding them, changing their diapers, putting them to bed, waking them up, and holding and playing with them some more… (In the afternoon we went to get groceries and move to our home for the next few months – the toddler house, just a few minutes away from the baby house we work at.)

As I cuddled and held one baby after another, for the first time, I actually saw myself being a mother. I’d always known I’d be a mother some day (I hoped, at least), and I’d always believed I’d be a good mother (I hoped too, at least), but I was never so sure I’d enjoy being with my kids all day while they were growing up, just playing with them or feeding them or holding them and doing pretty much nothing else.

But for the first time, I realised that I probably could do it, and actually enjoy it. Here I was, holding babies I’d known only for a couple of hours, and having so much love and affection for them… What more if I held my own baby – a baby I would’ve carried in me for 9 months, a baby who was my own flesh and blood, a baby who would remind me of my husband, a baby I’d have named, a baby I would call my own and be proud of and be insanely in love with… How much more would I love that child and want to be there for every first-something – first word, first smile, first laugh, first step…

The babies here at the Door of Hope are the happiest babies I’ve ever seen in my life. It amazes me how smiley and giggly they are all the time (other than when we’re about an hour late feeding them), and when I commented about it, another volunteer replied, “These babies receive a lot of love here!” It’s so true. And as I thought about it yesterday, I would want to be with my baby most of the time – bringing him around with me wherever I went, even if it meant he was crawling around the floor as I worked on something, or he was sleeping in my arms as I watched a movie.

I just realised what a significant difference my presence would make to my kid. And I want to be there for my kid when he’s growing up. He only grows up once… I don’t think I’d want to miss that :)

1st day of 2011

I received the best compliment of the year (so far) on New Year’s Day.

Mackenzie was sitting across me during breakfast when her face suddenly lit up and she said to me, “Marianne! You distracted me during worship yesterday! (I was back-up singing as Erika lead) You looked SO PRETTY! You were so beautiful!”

Great way to start the New Year :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I felt closer to one of my best friends back home than I ever have since leaving.

Dina sent me an email on New Year’s Eve. This is what she said at the end of it.

“Tomorrow morning, I am going to watch the first sunrise of year 2011. You should watch it, too. Let’s witness the beginning of a new day together although we are quite far apart now! :)”

And that’s exactly what I did :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I read a beautiful passage during my personal time with God, and memorised it. I want it to be a big part of my new year :)

“Teach me Your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in Your truth;
unite my heart to fear Your name.

I give thanks to You, O Lord my God,
with my whole heart,
and I will glorify Your name forever.

For great is Your steadfast love toward me;
You have delivered my soul
from the depths of Sheol.”

Psalm 86:11-13

Revelations

In the months preceding training, I was pretty sure that God would reveal what He wants me to do with my life during training, or at least what I should study after training, if not what I should do with my life.

We went through different modules, one of which was “Knowing God’s Purpose and Will”. As we did that, I thought God might confirm what He wanted me to study during that time.

It’s now been about 3 and a half months since training started, and I must admit that I have almost no clue what I should study. Important people in my life all have differing opinions, from me and from one another.

The strange thing is... I’m okay with being clueless. I don’t have that much time left to decide, but I’m at peace about it. I don’t know what God’s will for me is yet, but I know that as I pray and seek Him, He will reveal it to me in His totally perfect timing, and that until then, I really don’t have to worry about it. He has it all planned out :)

So I guess what God has shown me over training is much more than I’d asked for – instead of just revealing to me His will as to what I should study, He’s revealed to me the fact that I can trust Him with my whole life; my desires, hopes, fears and plans.

And He has revealed to me the next step after training – I’ll be heading to the Door of Hope in Johannesburg with 2 of my best friends, Lisa and Mackenzie :) It’s basically a ministry for abandoned children. There’s a hole-in-the-wall ministry where babies are left in a hole in the wall (that explains it!) by parents who are unable to look after them or don’t want to and would rather have someone else do so than totally abandon them, or abandoned babies are picked up from hospitals. So the people at Door of Hope look after these babies/children until they are adopted.

So yup, that’s it for now. We’re now doing the Re-entry module. It’s the beginning of the end of training...

Love
Marianne

If you had just one candle...

Would you burn it in the light or in the darkness?

Duh, in the darkness. The flame of the candle is insignificant in the light.

What if that candle were your life?

Would you reach out to those who live in darkness, or remain safe, burning pointlessly in the light?